More than 50 Indian historians have detailed their collective “anguish” at the “highly vitiated atmosphere prevailing in the country”, just weeks after dozens of Indian writers returned their literary awards in protest over what they called India’s “climate of intolerance”.

The historians, who include eminent scholars Romila Thapar and Irfan Habib, write in a joint statement published in full on the Indian news website Scroll that, in India today, “differences of opinion are being sought to be settled by using physical violence”, and that “arguments are met not with counter arguments but with bullets”.

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“This is as good as saying that intellectuals will be silenced if they protest,” the historians write.

“What the regime seems to want is a kind of legislated history, a manufactured image of the past, glorifying certain aspects of it and denigrating others, without any regard for chronology, sources or methods of enquiry that are the building blocks of the edifice of history,” they write, urging the state to “ensure an atmosphere that is conducive to free and fearless expression, security for all sections of society and the safe-guarding of the values and traditions of plurality that India had always cherished in the past”.

“It is easy to trample them down, but it is important to remember that it will take too long and will be beyond the capacity of those who are currently at the helm of affairs, to rebuild it once it is destroyed,” the statement ends.

The author Salman Rushdie has also supported writers’ decisions to return their prizes. He tweeted: “I support #NayantaraSahgal and the many other writers protesting to the Sahitya Akademi. Alarming times for free expression in India.” And he told a local television network that: “What has crept into Indian life now is a degree of thuggish violence which is new. And it seems to be given permission by the silence of official bodies, the silence of the Sahitya Akademi … by the silence of the prime minister’s office.”